Historian Lewis Spitz dead at age 77

Lewis W. Spitz, the first holder of the
William R. Kenan Professorship in history, died
on Dec. 22 of cardiac arrest at Stanford Medical
Center. He was 77.

Spitz was a world-renowned expert on Martin
Luther and a scholar of Renaissance and
Reformation history. A former associate dean of
the School of Humanities and Sciences, he helped
to develop the Western Culture program that was
introduced in 1978.

Born in Bertrans, Neb., and raised in
Concordia, Mo., Spitz earned his undergraduate
degree from Concordia College, a master's degree
from the University of Missouri, a Master of
Divinity degree from Concordia Seminary and a
doctorate from Harvard University. He also
received honorary degrees from Valparaiso
University, Wittenberg University, Concordia
Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Ind., and
Concordia College in St. Paul, Minn.

Before coming to Stanford in 1961, Spitz had
taught history at the University of Missouri from
1953 to 1959. He was a Fulbright Professor at the
Institute for European History in Mainz, Germany,
and a visiting scholar at the Institute for
Advanced Study, Princeton, and at Columbia
University. He retired from teaching at Stanford
in 1993.

Spitz' published works include The
Religious Renaissance of the German Humanists,
The Renaissance and Reformation Movements and
The Protestant Reformation, 1517-1559. He
also published Humanism and Reformation as
Cultural Forces in German History, and was
the author of 15 volumes and more than 80 book
chapters.

Honored by Concordia Seminary for his
contributions to the Lutheran church's Missouri
Synod, Spitz maintained a religious view of life
and saw teaching as a special vocation.

"Teaching has always seemed to me to be a
most important and honorable vocation, both a
healing and an invigorating cultural exchange
between mentor and students," he wrote for Campus
Report in 1991. "As for me, university
teaching has enabled me to develop a career that
coincides perfectly with my inner needs and goals
in life, which have more to do with service than
with ambition, more with love of people than with
a wish to dominate, more with mind and spirit
than with material things."

"Lew was a world-renowned scholar of the
Reformation and a valued member of the Stanford
community," colleague James Sheehan, the
Dickason Professor in the Humanities, said.

Sheehan added that Spitz was legendary for his
loyalty to his students, whose careers "he
furthered with great energy and generosity."

One student ­ middle linebacker Jeff Siemon,
who played on the team that beat Michigan in the
1972 Rose Bowl and who went on to play for the
Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League
­ was so appreciative that he asked all of his
teammates to sign a ball that they subsequently
presented to Spitz.

Another former student recalled an
undergraduate course in the history of the
Renaissance that he took from Spitz in 1961.

"He was an unusually impressive figure
and one of the most erudite people I've ever
encountered, and he had a command of ancient
languages and ancient texts that was
phenomenal," David Kennedy, the Donald J.
McLachlan Professor of History, said.

"One of his practices was to quote, from
memory, long excerpts from classical texts in
Latin. I thought it was a powerful testimony to
the depth of his learning and his commitment to
make it evident, even to beginning students in
history, that the things he was saying were based
on well-considered documents that he thought had
to be confronted in the original.

"There are very few people in this
university with that kind of deep rootedness in
classical texts," Kennedy adds. "He was
a unique individual."

Spitz received the Harbison Award for
outstanding college teaching from the Danforth
Foundation in 1964. He was a pioneer in
interdepartmental teaching and course planning,
and was instrumental in developing a new freshman
history sequence, for which he drafted the
curriculum for the initial quarter in 1973.

Spitz held both Guggenheim and Fulbright
fellowships and was a senior fellow of the
American Council of Learned Societies, and a
fellow of the Huntington Library.

He served for eight years as managing editor
of the Archive for Reformation History, an
international scholarly journal. He was elected a
fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences in 1987.

Spitz is survived by his wife of 51 years,
Edna Huttenmaier Spitz, Ph.D.; his sister,
Dorothy Rosin of St. Louis; sons Stephen Spitz of
San Francisco and Philip Spitz of Fremont; and
three grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at Bethany
Lutheran Church in Menlo Park at 2 p.m. Saturday,
Jan. 15. A reception will be held at the Faculty
Club immediately following the service.

Those wishing to make donations should send
them to the Lewis W. Spitz Memorial Fund, Center
for Reformation Research, 6477 San Bonita Avenue,
St. Louis, MO 63105.